My mother is a worrier. She finds
a dozen ills to fret about a week,
detecting dreadful symptoms of all kinds,
for they can’t hide as well as she will seek.
And lately she is warning me, with stern
advice she only means for my own good.
Insisting she speaks out of her concern
for me: “Just stay outside the neighborhood
where Berkeley is erupting once again!”
I bark a laugh and firmly blurt a “Not!
You crazy mom. I didn’t listen when
I went to Cal at first. Have you forgot?”
(My mother’s almost 92 years old,
and I’m near 68, if truth be told).